Criminal choice, nonmonetary sanctions and marginal deterrence: A normative analysis

A Note on Marginal Deterrence

The theory of deterrence has been concerned primarily with situations in which individuals consider whether to commit a single harmful act. For instance, a person may be deciding whether to discharge a pollutant into a lake. In some contexts, however, a person may be contemplating which of several harmful acts to commitwhether to discharge a pollutant into a lake or instead to discharge it onto...

Asset Forfeiture and Criminal Deterrence

Asset forfeiture laws allow the seizure of assets used in the commission of a crime. This paper examines the impact of such laws on deterrence by incorporating the possibility of asset forfeiture into the standard economic model of crime. When punishment is by a fine that can be optimally chosen, forfeiture is never optimal because of the deadweight loss it imposes in the capital market. When t...

Antitrust Enforcement and Marginal Deterrence

We study antitrust enforcement in which the fine must obey four legal principles: punishments should fit the crime, proportionality, bankruptcy considerations, and minimum fines. We integrate these legal principles into an infinitely-repeated oligopoly model. Bankruptcy considerations ensure abnormal cartel profits. We derive the optimal fine schedule that achieves maximal social welfare under ...

Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature

We review economics research regarding the effect of police, punishments, and work on crime, with a particular focus on papers from the last 20 years. Evidence in favor of deterrence effects is mixed. While there is considerable evidence that crime is responsive to police and to the existence of attractive legitimate labor market opportunities, there is far less evidence that crime responds to ...

Driver Behavior and Legal Sanctions: A Study of Deterrence